According to Lemanger and Chakrabarty, one of the difficulties of addressing climate change is that, through a human lens, its effects seem gradual, dispersed, and might even be invisible to some. Its impact stretches across time and space in ways that are hard for people to grasp, but as Lemanger puts it, “Climate change represents, among other things, an assault on the everyday” (221). Traditional forms of communication—like news headlines, graphs, or public policy debates—struggle to make climate change feel urgent and tangible. This is where novels can play a distinctive role in helping bridge this gap. 

As LeMenager explains, fiction translates abstract issues like carbon emissions or sea-level rise into everyday stories, a setting she calls the “everyday Anthropocene”. She argues that by writing novels in this format readers are more likely to understand “…what it means to live through climate shift, moment by moment, in individual, fragile bodies” (225). Chakrabarty also notes how hard it is to think across both human time and geological time. Novels, with their flexible use of perspective and time, can connect the long scale of the Anthropocene with the present moment. They reveal the human costs of “slow violence”, as Rob Nixon states, and suggest possible futures. Novels can help us see climate change not only as an environmental issue, but also as a cultural and moral one.

In this sense, novels do more than just represent climate change, they foster imaginative creativity. They help readers imagine different futures and feel the stakes of slow violence. They can inspire reflection, spark public discussion, and even motivate action by making climate change feel emotional and relatable. Novels reach a wide audience and invite readers to see themselves as both a part of the problem and the solution. Through literature, climate change can be transformed from a remote scientific problem into a universal human narrative that calls for accountability and responsibility.

Take 2 minutes to think, 2 minutes to write, and 2 minutes to discuss with the person next to you…

First round:

What are some of the problems novels confront when representing the Anthropocene? What is it about this genre that makes it a problematic “container” for the “contents” of a warming/weird/destabilizing climate? Jot down whatever messy list you can dig up, and try to include at least two of the authors, among Lemenager, Ghosh, and Bracke. Jot down page numbers where the authors best express their positions to share with us.

Second round:

What are some of the advantages novels possess, despite the above issues, in representing the Anthropocene? What is it about the formal properties of novels–their “narratalogical” features; their way of representing time and space; their scope and scale–that aid them in helping us comprehend features of the Anthropocene that are otherwise hard to grasp? Again, look for evidence from more than one author and jot down page numbers where the authors best express their positions to share with us.

In the Anthropocene, mankind exerts a force equal to that of natural phenomena such as volcanoes, earthquakes, or even an asteroid that wipes out life on Earth. A force so large that it becomes difficult to translate it into novelistic practice because the temporal and spatial scales which it inhabits are simply too vast for the few hundred pages of a novel. In critiques of the shortfalls of the novelistic representation of the climate crisis by Astrid Bracke, novels lean on anthropocentric perspectives to tell stories whereas an effective climate fiction novel requires “a decentring and defavouring of the human perspective” (Bracke 89). However, this may also be the novel’s strongest outlet in translating the Anthropocene by transporting readers to a familiar, but dying world. In the flood fiction novels that Bracke discusses, the plot does not only take place in the future, but possibly our future. This depiction of the future consequences of the present climate crisis makes an impression on readers who must recognize that they are making history as much as they are a product of it. In Stephanie LeMenager’s words, we are “matter overwritten and writing history” (LeMenager 229) who must “[attend] vigilantly to the world that enters and impinges on us” (LeMenager 224). 

Both Bracke and LeMenager also agree that an effective cli-fi novel depicts climate change as a dangerous phenomena through normalization. Counterintuitively, normalization of climate events such as floods makes it clear that the impact of climate change is so extreme that it is “no longer exceptional but part of everyday life” (Bracke 91). Rather, it is everyday life. In discussing the Parable novels by Octavia Butler, LeMenager defines the “everyday” in Anthropocene novels as “reconciling the crises of dystopian story structures with the habits of living on” (LeMenager 224). 

Additionally, the novels Bracke discusses are set in constricted spaces juxtaposed against the globality of the climate crisis which is what makes flood fictions effective in representing the Anthropocene. A single character, a human, is, in fact, not just a single human, but a component of mankind, a global biological entity that “[exercises] brute force on the planet” (LeMenager 230). And such a force constricts our livable spaces through natural disasters brought on by ourselves. Bracke also reasons that these constricted spaces are a safe haven to a novel’s characters and the external world contains humans that are a danger to these safe havens (Bracke 96). The outside world has descended into a State of Nature of sorts and pushes humanity back to a state of having to fight to survive. Similarly, LeMenager argues for love that “inheres in attachment to other life… that can be enacted through local conservation and appreciation” (LeMenager 235). Both illustrate an incentive to survive for characters hoping for the continuity of humankind and in turn, for readers, who could hope and work for a different future for humanity.

Ghosh’s ideology refers to how, as a collective, our lack of acknowledgement towards spontaneous climate change is ultimately what leads to our climate issues of the modern day. A particular aspect of his ideology relates to how, in contemporary literature, climate changes are mainly mentioned in scientific accounts (i.e., nonfiction), rather than in novels or fiction. And even when climate is rarely mentioned in fiction, it is not taken seriously. I mainly agree with his thoughts on this particular subject, however, I do have some differences in opinion.

He discusses the linguistic context behind the word “recognition.” He states that there is a significant aspect of the word, lying behind its first syllable, “rec,” which refers to something prior, suggesting a pre-existing awareness that allows a shift from ignorance to knowledge (Ghosh 3). By exploring the definition of this term, he suggests that awareness of climate change relies on prior knowledge (i.e., knowing about natural disasters). He then brings up a specific example that his forebears likely awoke to the recognition of the natural presence that had come to take their lives, after taking the presence for granted over the time of their lives (Ghosh 3). Looking through the lenses of his ideology, I would assume that he believes that as a collective, humans can easily realize the various types of climate change and environmental disasters, but even with that prior knowledge, we lack the means to truly find the value in them. I think he feels that climate change is not taken seriously, given how he addresses the concept of recognition in relation to climate. What further supports this notion is how he claims that novels regarding the subject are referred to as science fiction (Ghosh 6). Even in contemporary writing, which would be expected to reflect modern-day issues and concerns, climate is overlooked upon. I definitely agree with Ghosh on this point, as it would even seem that when climate is mentioned in fiction, it seems to be otherworldly (even though it may reflect disasters that currently exist). For example, in the “Wizard of Oz,” the depiction of climate in the magical world would easily be overlooked. In a land of fantasy, the weather may just seem like an unnatural factor, but many of the weather events (i.e., the tornado) reflected real-world disasters in Kansas during the time period of the movie’s production. He even brings up the larger consequence of ignoring the realities of climate, as he pessimistically suggests that when future readers look upon the literature of our time, there will only be accounts of climate that are concealed (Ghosh 11). Though I do believe this is a negative way to look upon literature, I can understand that he may have this belief because climate is misrepresented in novels, which will cause future generations to not be able to have accurate accounts of environmental issues.

I do appreciate the way in which Ghosh reflects on the problem of misrepresenting climate, but I also feel that he contradicts himself as well. For example, he brings up how weather is not easily accommodated in contemporary literature because of its improbability, but then continues to add how in John Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” there is a depiction of extreme weather that reflects the environmental times of Milton’s society (Ghosh 26). In terms of my personal understanding, Ghosh seems to suggest that because of the collective belief that climate is improbable, it renders it difficult to write about. But, if Milton could write such meaningful poems while having regard for extreme climate, which may be considered improbable, why can we not in our contemporary society? And, by stating that he believes in the improbability of weather in our time, does that not make him part of the collective that he is discussing negatively?

When reading chapter 4, “The Novel” by Astrid Bracke, Bracke asks a major question that puts me in a spot that I can’t seem to answer. Which is can novels still matter when we’re facing something as huge as climate? When discussing this question, many critics have argued against it. One critic, Timothy Clark, argues that “The vast temporal and spatial scales of climate crisis cannot be captured in conventional narrative forms such as novels.” (Bracke 88). In other words, what he is saying is that climate change is too big in time and space for novels to capture. However, Brarakes points out that novels like flood fictions can help people understand what it feels like to live through climate change. Briefly, the critics are convinced. Amitav Ghosh, another famous critic, claimed that ” the genre’s development in precisely that period when the accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere here was rewriting the destiny of history”(Bracke 88). Which means that the novel was used around the rise of fuels, so it will probably be tied to the problems that caused the crisis. But Bracke shows that leaving behind the novel would underestimate its resilience. Adam Trexler, a literary scholar, reminds us that the “imaginative capacities of the novel have made it a vital site for the articulation of the Anthropocene” (Bracke 89). Making it clear that novels may not solve climate change, but they make us feel like we’re there to witness it.                                                                                                                                                            Bracke’s case study of flood fiction was very inspiring, and works like Clare Morrall’s “When the Floods Came and Antonia Honeywell’s ” The Ship ” where they don’t just describe disaster, they simulate it. In Antonia Honeywell’s The Ship, the main character, Lalage, starts to blame the early generation, where she said,” at the stupidty of the generations before mine that had brought us to this place” (Bracke 92). This kind of writing draws more on what people see today as the past than the future will judge. It shows climate change as more personal than global.  These novels tell a perspective on families. In Clare Morrall’s When the Floods Came, Roza’s family lives in separation after the disaster. Bracke argues that this helps focus on readers connect emotionally. However, I feel that it could be limiting when it risks keeping the attention of humans and ignoring nonhuman life that is just as affected. In the end, the novel isn’t a weakness, but that’s what makes it powerful. A still image or an ice core can show us climate data, but also can make us feel a bit of fear and grief, and hope. Bracke shows us how the novel isn’t dead but rather may be one of the tools to imagine how to live in an Anthropocene.